Sonic.net

dane wrote:The website has been streamlined because the product has been simplified. All we sell today is a package of unlimited phone and Internet service for $40 monthly. (Coming soon, a bonding option for $20 will add a second data line.)

So in areas where customers today have older DSL products, the website won't offer service today unless we can reach the location with the new product. There are also locations at longer distances where Fusion would deliver slower speeds and we choose not to offer service to new customers there.

Thanks for answering!

Hmm - so my bonded DSL Fusion service might now no longer be offered at my location were I to want it today? I'll probably call support and find out what would be available.

Your reply still doesn't answer the question tho' (sorry to bug you) - simple is one thing. Strictly mobile-friendly is another. The website's clearly "mobile-friendly" and not just simplified.

Who made that choice, and what was the logic behind it?

I ask, because so many websites are doing that; the only reason I can think is because companies believe that most of the their customers or potential customers will be viewing their website on a phone or tablet instead of a desktop/laptop. How do you know that to be true, and why stop development at "mobile-friendly"? It can't just be because of "simplicity" : mobile-only != simplified

- Tim

I wonder if perhaps your browser is being incorrectly identified as a mobile device. When viewing from a phone, you'll see a mobile version of the site, but from a regular system you should see the full site. It looks like this:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3dkh30ucujhrw ... 6.png?dl=0

dane wrote:I wonder if perhaps your browser is being incorrectly identified as a mobile device. When viewing from a phone, you'll see a mobile version of the site, but from a regular system you should see the full site. It looks like this:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3dkh30ucujhrw ... 6.png?dl=0

I don't have the ability to see DropBox links from work, so I'll have to wait until I get home for that.

Here's what I see:

http://i58.tinypic.com/ng6a6t.png

I think I'm seeing your "desktop" site - but it's HUUUUUGE. HUUUUGE picture. HUUUUGE font. VERY LITTLE CONTENT. HAVE TO SCROLL DOWN TO SEE ANYTHING. BIG! COLORS! FONTS! WHEE!

As opposed to the old, content-dense site where you could see almost everything on a single page.

The huge background pictures, the fact that the site ignores browser scaling commands (control+/-), the vertical-scrolling orientation, and the general Disneyfication of the site (as I'm trying to impart by my all-caps over-excited text above) is the trend I'm talking about.

What is wrong with the "you can see it all on a single page/resizeable content/smaller fonts/dense-content" design of the past?

The picture I uploaded very much looks like a tablet-friendly page, not a desktop-friendly page.

Comments, Dane?

- Tim

tbessie wrote: Here's what I see:

http://i58.tinypic.com/ng6a6t.png

Yep, that's what it's supposed to look like. Friendly to my aging eyes, good use of whitespace to let the content breathe a bit. Good stuff.

tbessie wrote: As opposed to the old, content-dense site where you could see almost everything on a single page.

I think "old" and "dense" aren't words we'd like associated with us if we can help it. Ultimately it's an aesthetic decision.

thulsa_doom wrote:Yep, that's what it's supposed to look like. Friendly to my aging eyes, good use of whitespace to let the content breathe a bit. Good stuff.

tbessie wrote: As opposed to the old, content-dense site where you could see almost everything on a single page.

I think "old" and "dense" aren't words we'd like associated with us if we can help it. Ultimately it's an aesthetic decision.

Oh, come on - you're playing with the meaning of "old" and "dense".

By "old" I meant "the way it used to be" (which isn't necessarily bad - if it ain't broke, don't fix it, etc).
By "dense" I meant "a lot of information in a small enough space to read it all without having to mouse/keyboard much, but still easily navigable".

Those are positive things.

What in the world does "Let the content breathe" mean? Content doesn't need to "breathe" - it needs to be easily accessible without undue mousing or other navigation, which this design breaks in the name of "latest and greatest" (in my opinion). And I've got old eyes too. :-/

So... I was hoping for someone involved in the design decisions to pipe in here and say WHY this decision was made... eg. why was it necessary at all? Why was the old (sorry, PRIOR) design "bad" or in need of such a big revision? Can you speak to those issues, without resorting to semantics? I would like to know why this decision was made in the first place. To me, it seems like it was part of a "mobile first" initiative, but nobody from Sonic in this thread has addressed the reasons for the redesign.

- Tim

It was a rebranding and modernization effort. Our old site was quite dated. Mobile wasn't the driving factor.

dane wrote:It was a rebranding and modernization effort. Our old site was quite dated. Mobile wasn't the driving factor.

That's surprising, given that it looks like every other mobile-driven modernization effort I've seen out there in the web in general; formerly content-rich sites with desktop-centric layout are transformed to ones that look just like yours, with big images, huge fonts, bright colors, less content per screen at a time.

What else could be the design philosophy but mobile-first, given what we see there? Desktops and laptops can support rich, dense content, smaller fonts (as they have in the past), etc. Why not use them? I've got a 1080p monitor, as most people I know do; what about the design caters to that? Nothing at all - it caters to low-res tablets and phones using vertical finger-scrolling more than anything. Lack of ability to scale the site with browser scaling? Only mobile-first websites do that.

I get the sense I'm not going to get a complete answer here; honestly, I'm not trying to be difficult, just trying to find out the *specifics* of the motivations behind the redesign. Rebranding is one thing; but this specific type of design is very mobile-oriented, whether it was your driving force or not.

Most designers I talk to these days are all about this kind of layout, and they all say it's due to targeting mobile devices. Why else do it this way? What does it get you?

Again, I don't think I'm going to get a complete answer here. I'm a bit disappointed, because one of the things that brings me to Sonic is its history of standing up for its customers, and its transparency. The replies I'm getting to my questions provide no transparency at all that I can tell, just some handwaving and a few buzzwords, but no real explanation. You can't convince me that there weren't many long meetings at Sonic discussing the redesign, the whys and wherefores of it, its target audience, its goals, etc. I'm sure most of the management at Sonic were involved in the decision-making... that is, there were definite REASONS it was decided to do the design in this particular way. I would like to know what those reasons were.

Of course, it's not my company, so I can't "demand" anything, but given the abovementioned history of transparency, I'm still disappointed at the paucity of explanations as to the logic and history behind the design decisions.

- Tim

tbessie wrote:Oh, come on - you're playing with the meaning of "old" and "dense".

By "old" I meant "the way it used to be" (which isn't necessarily bad - if it ain't broke, don't fix it, etc).
By "dense" I meant "a lot of information in a small enough space to read it all without having to mouse/keyboard much, but still easily navigable".

Those are positive things.

Understood. I just have my fun.

tbessie wrote: That's surprising, given that it looks like every other mobile-driven modernization effort I've seen out there in the web in general; formerly content-rich sites with desktop-centric layout are transformed to ones that look just like yours, with big images, huge fonts, bright colors, less content per screen at a time.

What else could be the design philosophy but mobile-first, given what we see there?

The way people approach the web has changed over the years. Or perhaps settled down a bit.

Folks have their preferred portals that tend to act as an Internet dashboard of sorts, but that isn't what http://www.sonic.com is well-suited to serve as, and never was. If, for example, you're looking for international phone rates on Sonic Fusion + Phone, you don't need Dane's opinion about an FCC ruling or a sales pitch for gigabit fiber in Brentwood, you want this. Which hardly qualifies as information-scarce, and is what you get if you tell Google, Bing, or the search tool on our front page that you're looking for "sonic international rates."

Putting lots of disparate content together in one place doesn't necessarily make any of it easier to find or easier to consume, so there's some advantage to separating things out a bit. Which frees up screen space. Which is precious and limited on mobile devices and cheap and plentiful on nice desktop monitors, so the current trend in web design is commonly (and not entirely incorrectly) thought of as mobile-driven when really it's just more mobile-friendly.

That's my personal take on it, at least.

Well, I appreciate your thoughts, thulsa_doom.

I'll probably take my dislike of this sort of design to my grave (or until another trend comes into vogue). I appear to be trying to "fight city hall".

- Tim

As John notes, web design tastes have evolved over the years. When we hired the firm that did our new identity and look, we pointed them toward sites our team liked, including Nest and Tesla.

The Nest home page is simple, then individual product pages provide more and more info as you scroll deeper. See for example https://nest.com/smoke-co-alarm/life-with-nest-protect/

You'll also notice similar design on Tesla's explanatory pages, compare our residential product page or gigabit fiber page to their charging overview, here: http://www.teslamotors.com/charging#/basics - the idea is that you scroll down to learn more.

Sorry you don't like it, we're just doing our best!